Wednesday, April 25, 2007

WP: D. Moseley (2-0): Angels 9, Tigers 8

Man, am I glad I missed this one. A mediocre outing by Escobar (not unexpected considering he's coming off the DL), the bullpen leaking runs one and two at a time, Speier to Shields to K-Rod, the latter getting his first blown save of the year on a two-run homer to Magglio Ordonez that briefly tied the game. Ironically enough, Darren Oliver, who looked horrible in the Seattle series, held down the fort for an inning and a shaky third, throwing about 50-50 strikes and balls.

It is a peculiarity of the rules that Dustin Moseley should get the win for having been the last man standing at the top of the tenth. A strange game, and a strange man to come out with the win. The Angels will take it, blood and all.

And, hey, nice offense, guys, especially from the New Kendry On The Block.

What really kills me, though, is that I gave away my tickets to tomorrow night's game, with Edwin Jackson as the probable starter for the Devil Rays. Man.

Recap • Yahoo Box, which has Sean Casey homering in the top of the 10th, yet the line score shows a zero in that frame for the Tigers. Go figure.

Surprisingly, this was one of the more enjoyable games of the year. It was actually a very strong outing for Escobar until he ran into some bad luck. He looked invincible, retiring the first ten men he faced, five on strikeouts, until Maicer and Aybar made back to back errors (he would've been out of the inning) in the fourth, at which point he gave up his first single. Despite the bases being loaded, he still only gave up one run. Then he pitched a perfect fifth, and tired a bit in the sixth.

I'd say, you can't call this outing mediocre from just looking at the linescore. Escobar largely looked great. Had his defense been a little stronger, he might've lasted through seven.

And there was some rather fun small ball at the end. Vlad actually executing some decent baserunning for once, Jose an effective sac bunt, and a contact play that brought Willits home from third. It doesn't work much these days, so it's enjoyable to watch it when it does. A real chess match at the end between Scioscia and Leyland.

And that's a good Tigers offense. The runs they scored off of Speier and Shields weren't cheap. The hitters looked inspired...the story of this game really wasn't bad pitching. It was little defensive miscues combined with a lot of offense. Nevertheless, the Angels defense executed three double plays and left 20 Tigers stranded in the game.